Photography of Mine

[Ben]

Oh wow, haven't been to this site in a while. (Thought...) Hello again! Anyway, I plan on becoming a photographer, and lately, as I've posted pictures on other forums that I go to, and such, I haven't been helped much, since I usually get "Good job!" and that's it, and I was wondering if any of you could help improve my photography through constructive criticism. Although, I still do like compliments. =P

So, here's some pictures I've taken, mostly of nature. I don't know much about photography, I'm a beginner, even though I've been taking pictures like this for over a year, so any tips or anything will help too.











I'll post some more after comments. Thanks for taking a look!

EDIT: Wow, I didn't realize the pictures would be so big, could someone tell me if there's a way to re-size them?

[Balzac]

Firstly, what camera do you use? Is it an SLR or just a quick snapshot camera?

Second, if you use an SLR, do you shoot in RAW?

Third, do you ue photoshop (or cheapo equivalent) to edit your pics in anyway, as in sharpen and make colours more vivid?

[Rantz]

I love the first three, they are very harmonious and soft. I, personally, like that they don't look very edited, they have a natural atmosphere over them. Everybody [over]saturates their photos these days, and I think it's nice to see a change from that.

That being said, the picture with the water reflection seems a bit discoloured and the leftmost grass could indeed use both sharpening and saturation to blend in with the rest of the grass. As for the sunset picture, I think the light gives it a nice special atmosphere but I think you should have used it to picture something other than the sunset itself, because sunsets are just so done to death and—to me at least—connotes cheap, mass-produced art. If you want to do sunsets, I recommend picturing them in a more interesting way. The electrical cords also disturb the picture in my eyes.

Keep it up and keep working!

[Ben]

Firstly, what camera do you use? Is it an SLR or just a quick snapshot camera?

Second, if you use an SLR, do you shoot in RAW?

Third, do you ue photoshop (or cheapo equivalent) to edit your pics in anyway, as in sharpen and make colours more vivid?

I use a Point-and-Shoot camera right now. And no, I do nothing to edit my pictures whatsoever. I hate making them artificial. Although, I am updating my camera to a better version. Not an SLR, but something better than a Point-and-Shoot.

I love the first three, they are very harmonious and soft. I, personally, like that they don't look very edited, they have a natural atmosphere over them. Everybody [over]saturates their photos these days, and I think it's nice to see a change from that.

That being said, the picture with the water reflection seems a bit discoloured and the leftmost grass could indeed use both sharpening and saturation to blend in with the rest of the grass. As for the sunset picture, I think the light gives it a nice special atmosphere but I think you should have used it to picture something other than the sunset itself, because sunsets are just so done to death and—to me at least—connotes cheap, mass-produced art. If you want to do sunsets, I recommend picturing them in a more interesting way. The electrical cords also disturb the picture in my eyes.

Keep it up and keep working!

Thanks! And yes, the electrical cords are hard to get around when taking some of the pictures, because they go right in front, along where the sun sets. I'll try to think about doing sunsets another way, now I'll be looking for different types. Ah, but I do have one here. Its not the exact sunset, but its off to the side :



And here's another, its not the sunset, but the sunset is off to the side.

[musashius]

For a point-and-shoot, I am very impressed with the macros (especially the dandilion).

The first one feels a little underexposed to me, but that may be due to the lighting (and I'm assuming you can't adjust the shutter speed or aperture on your camera). Furthermore, since you have a point-and-shoot, I'm assuming you can't adjust the focus. Parts of the plant (closer to the bottom) are a little unfocussed, but you could probably have easily fixed that with a camera that doesn't rely on AF.

The grass in the puddle picture has excellent composition and it looks like the sun was cooperating.

For the picture with the sun smack in the middle (sunset), the cloud cover kinda hurts the natural lighting. I would probably up the exposure time by decreasing shutter speed and increasing the ISO sensitivity.

All in all, you have some good ideas for composition here and like I said, I am fairly impressed with those macro shots especially considering your camera.

Although I agree that artificial-looking photographs can be bad, I do believe that there is an art to manipulating pictures and still make it look good and natural. Overall, I think you've got some good ideas going and you could really benefit from owning a real camera.

[smittenkitten]

I love the second last one in your first post, such nice conditions and the water really adds an effect.